EPA, HUD search for ways to keep mid-career feds

Jason Miller, executive editor, Federal News Radio

Agencies are launching new efforts to keep employees who have between five and 10
years of experience in government.

That's about the time when many consider moving to the private sector. But it's
also the time when many are ready to move up the career ladder.

The dearth of these employees is causing a bathtub effect in government where a
lot of employees are at the early career stage and a lot of feds are at the 20-plus career stage, but not enough are in the middle stages.

The Environmental Protection Agency is one of several agencies trying to reduce
the slope of the curve.

Bob Perciasepe, acting administrator, EPA

"We are rolling out actually next week something called Skills Marketplace where,
since we now have these business-oriented social media in many of our agencies
now, what we are trying to do is capitalize on that and have people who have
skills sets on there," said Bob Perciasepe, the acting EPA administrator, Monday
at the Partnership for Public Service's Town Hall in Washington as part of the
Public Service Recognition Week celebration. "We are changing our human resources
polices on details. I call it like a micro detail. If someone has a big heavy
project somewhere and they are a good entrepreneur as a manager, they can get
resources from around the agency. It makes people see the agency from other
perspectives and be involved in other parts of the agency for a small amount of
their time each year, that way the whole agency benefits from the more fungibility
of their skillsets."

Perciasepe said there are several technology options for sharing employee
capabilities and those that they want to improve upon. He said the younger
employees tend to be attracted to this type of initiative.

Under-5 group

At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Secretary Shaun Donovan said
the agency launched HUDConnect about a year ago.

"It really has spawned all these interest groups where folks are sharing ideas,
thoughts about the agency, knowledge in ways we could never have created just by
saying we will start a group for X or for Y," he said. "We started to connect
those employees very intentionally to our younger employees. We have an under-five
group — not that they are under-5-years-old-but they've been at HUD for less
than five years. We've connected them with some of our most experienced managers
at our agency. It's been a great thing for both the folks who have been there 30-
40-50 years as well as for these younger employees to get to how do you build
careers and get the younger folks to stay."

Part of the challenge in getting younger people to stay is to improve morale.

Across the board, federal employee morale is low. A Federal News Radio online
anonymous survey in January of
visitors to our website found their own morale level was low, and they rated the
morale level in their offices even lower.

The top three "morale killers," according to federal employees, were, in order,
pay freezes, ineffective leadership and fed bashing from Congress and the public.

Donovan, Perciasepe and others on the panel recognize the morale problems they
face.

Listen to your employees

The common theme among the panelists was to make sure employees know they are
valued.

For example, Donovan said he holds agencywide virtual town hall meetings
regularly.

HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan

"That includes every field office around the country. We are unusual as an agency
to have two-thirds of our staff out in the field across the country. For an agency
of 9,000 people and 80 field offices, we are an agency that is very dispersed and
technology is incredibly important in terms of communicating," Donovan said. "That
process of listening to employees, taking questions online and over video
teleconference is a very simple thing, but it's amazing how much that means to be
able to really understand what's going on in my head, other senior agency
leadership and what's going on with employees as well."

Donovan and several others said they also meet with employees when they are
traveling.

Clarify of vision

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she not only meets with
employees, but she offers them something more.

"One of the most important things senior leadership needs to do is have a clarity
of vision," she said. "It's not just communicating and saying you're doing a great
job. It's really saying, 'This is where we are going and we're going to have the
crisis du jour, we will have the congressional hearing to deal with or the media
piece that is out there, or whatever.' There needs to be a longer term, a bigger
vision, and then communicating that so people understand their role and what it is
you want them to do. You are not only praising them for their efforts, but holding
them accountable for helping that vision be achieved. I think good accountability
also helps build good morale."

Napolitano also said DHS' efficiency reviews are
another example of listening to employees and putting those ideas into practice.
She said the 43 initiatives has saved DHS or avoided spending more than $4 billion
over the last four years.

Napolitano also said the agency has been focusing on improving the frontline
supervisors' leadership skills. She said the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey
highlighted that as a specific weakness across DHS.

Dan Tangherlini, the acting administrator of the General Services Administration,
also said his agency's Great Idea hunt is another example of turning to employees
for help. GSA received 600 ideas and more than 20,000 comments on ways to improve
the agency.

And at EPA, Perciasepe said he tries to involve the career senior management more
in the decision making process.

"They need to feel their part, their expertise is being embedded into the system,
and they are able to make a difference in the same way I want to make a difference
while I'm in public service," he said. "We've created processes through the
executive management council, which are the career leadership, and other tools."

All four agency leaders said they recognize it's a tough time to be federal
employees now, especially with all the uncertainty created by sequestration, but
the passion for service is the overarching factor that keeps them and many
employees coming to work each day.